Are you a Peacemaker or a Nice-maker

Why Pleasing People Isn’t the Same as Creating Peace

Blessed are the Peacemakers….

We’ve all been there. A tense company meeting. An awkward family dinner during the holidays. A disagreement that is bubbling beneath the surface. Seeing a destructive behavior in someone you love. You feel the discomfort creeping in. Your heart whispers, “Lean in and say something.” But your head screams, “No! Be nice.”

And just like that, you choose silence over service. You choose to tiptoe instead of telling the truth. You choose bashfulness instead of bravery. You choose Nice-making over Peacemaking.

At first glance, this might seem like virtuous behavior. The words “Be Nice” ring in your head from childhood. We convince ourselves that not saying anything is keeping the peace. But let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t peacemaking. It’s nice-making—and it’s slowly corroding the very relationships we think we’re protecting. It leaves us feeling empty and incomplete. Most of all, the tension is still there, but now it’s simply suppressed. 

Almost every religion, philosophy, and psychology study bestows the virtues of being a peacemaker, and yet, sometimes being a peacemaker doesn’t actually bring peace. This is because sometimes we choose the counterfeit instead -- being a Nice-maker instead. Nice is the counterfeit of Kind. It does a really good job of counterfeiting Kind actions. Nice can look, act, and even feel like Kind, but it creates destructive cycles of disconnection in our lives.

True peacemaking is courageous, creative, and connecting. Nice-making is cowardly, self-protective, and ultimately corrosive. Authentic Peacemaking seeks connection, resolution, and truth. Nice-making, on the other hand, prioritizes conflict avoidance, appearances, comfort, and short-term emotional anesthesia.

The Great Counterfeit: Nice vs. Kind

Niceness is the art of placating others to avoid discomfort. It wears a smile, nods in agreement, and quietly tiptoes around tension. But niceness doesn’t resolve conflict—it suppresses it. Like a beach ball held underwater, what’s avoided eventually resurfaces with force.

By contrast, peacemaking is a bold, grounded act of love. It means stepping into tension, not with hostility, but with honesty and heart. Peacemakers don’t just avoid explosions; they disarm them through truth, empathy, and courage.

The reason we don't speak out in kindness may be in the name of being nice, but when we dig in, we find it has much deeper roots. Nice-making behavior is actually not very nice. It says I'm being silent or placating for the benefit of the other person, but in reality, it is self-serving. Nice behavior is self-centered. We are trying to avoid and even escape from conflict. We are trying to elude discomfort. We are trying to be liked by others. It is motivated by fear and control. Nice-making does not try to resolve issues for the long term but rather evades short-term irritation or pain.

The Roots of Peacemaking: A Sacred and Philosophical Virtue

Peacemaking is listed as a virtue across most faiths and philosophies,

In Christianity, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Jesus was not “nice”—He didn’t avoid conflict, but rather confronted corruption, flipped tables, and called out injustice, always anchored in love. This is the key aspect that it was always done in love.

In Judaism, “Shalom” means more than peace—it implies wholeness, integrity, and restoration. It teaches that “Peace” without truth is a lie. This addresses the “Kind vs. Nice” paradigm perfectly.

In Buddhism, Right speech and right action are paths to peace, but they require clarity, not avoidance.

Philosophical:

Even outside of religion, philosophers from Aristotle to Confucius elevated peace not as the absence of conflict but as the transformation of it.

Aristotle: Advocated for the “golden mean” between passivity and aggression—true virtue lies in courageous moderation. It means that instead of swinging the pendulum from one extreme to the other, we find center where we don't need mood swings.

“The good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.”

Kindness, he explained, is virtuous when it aligns with truth and justice, not when it simply avoids offense.

Immanuel Kant: Valued truth-telling as a moral imperative; lying to avoid discomfort violates standard ethics and human dignity. We think Ï'm not lying because I'm just not saying anything. This is not honest. It's not helpful. It's not kind. But it's very nice.

Confucius: Emphasized harmony through right relationships, not silence or self-erasure. Confucian philosophy extolls Ren (仁), or humaneness/kindness, but it must be tempered with Yi (义), or righteousness or truth. This philosophy says one must not be kind in a way that compromises justice, harmony, or moral truth. It says speak up, in love, when you see a destructive behavior being enacted by another

C.S. Lewis: Shared that kindness must be rooted in love, not approval. He showed in his writing that kindness is the most beneficial way to live, even when it causes short-term discomfort. He criticized the modern distortion, the counterfeit. of kindness and categorized it as "sentimental niceness”

“What most people mean by ‘being good to others’ is being nice; that is, being … amiable and fair. But that is not Christian charity. Charity means love, in the Christian sense. It does not mean being ‘nice.’”

Friedrich Nietzsche: Defined niceness as a "veil of weakness.” True kindness, for Nietzsche, comes from strength, not fear of disapproval.

“What is noble? Kindness, but not the kind born of fear.”

The Neuroscience of Courageous Conflict (Kindness)

Modern psychology reinforces what religions and philosophers have been saying for centuries. People-pleasing is nothing more than a trauma response. We are familiar with the Fight or flight response, but there are two lesser-known protection mechanisms called “freeze” and “fawn.” Nice is nothing more than the “fawn” reflex, driven by a deep fear of rejection. The trouble is that this strategy backfires.

According to neuroscientist Dan Siegel, authentic emotional engagement—especially in tense moments(Peacemaking) activates the prefrontal cortex, promoting empathy, integration, and relational safety.

In contrast, chronic avoidance(Nice-making) spikes cortisol and damages trust, both internally and relationally (Holmes, 2014). Simply put: placating others isn’t peaceful—it’s stressful. The number one brain chemical associated with Nice-making is cortisol. That's right -- the stress hormone. You can see the difference in the chart below.

The Differences Between Peacemaking and Nice-making

Real-life Scenarios of Peacemaking and Nice-making.

Within companies

Nice-making: The owner of a company sees destructive behavior such as bullying, drastic poor performance, or preferential or unequal treatment for certain employees. She avoids confronting the employees because she doesn't want to have conflict, but wants to build morale. She thinks she is doing the company a service, but behind the scenes company culture and the actual morale is crumbling.

Peacemaking: The leader of the company sees the destructive behavior and pulls the employees aside individually and privately to set clear boundaries while at the same time listening to them and trying to understand them and their struggles. She sees them as human not as cogs. The result is that the employees get the help they need to improve or step away from the company, the tension decreases as the behavior disappears, and trust for the leader increases because everyone sees they are willing to have courageous and kind conversations and address what needs to be addressed.

Within Marriages

Nice-making: A husband can sense his wife is hurting or distant, but doesn't ask questions or lean in to her feelings, nor does he offer to have a conversation because he doesn't want tension in the home. He also wonders fearfully if she is going to bring up some of his shortcomings. In the name of Nice-making he doesn't bring up the conversation because he wants peace and harmony in the home. The result is that the tension remains and actually builds as they avoid talking about some important issues they are dealing with.

Peacemaking: The husband leans in to his wife's feelings and says something like, “You seemed distant tonight. Is everything ok? I'm here if you want to talk.” The walls start to fall along with her tears. They sit together eye-to-eye and hold space for each other as they discuss some big things happening in their lives.

How to be a Peacemaker instead of a Nice-Maker

Sign up for the Kind vs. Nice Masterclass to learn the full model on how to transform from Nice to Kind.